"My music will never go anywhere without me."

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2019)

This is a whimsical yet poignant portrait of a man who has spent his entire life aboard a steamship traversing the Atlantic, earning his stay as one of the ship's musicians after he was raised by a crewman on board and left with no place else to go after his benefactor died in an unfortunate accident. It's at times fanciful and capricious, and at other times emotionally wrenching. Much of the story is told through the recollection of Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a trumpet player with the steamer Virginian, who formed a friendship and bond with the pianist who came to be known as 1900, having been born on the first day of that year. In hindsight and a series of flashbacks, Max recalls his association with 1900 (Tim Roth) and their adventures at sea, and how the enigmatic pianist maintained his resolve to remain captive to the Virginian's spell over the many years. A couple of noteworthy scenes entertained this viewer, the first being the playful sequence in which 1900 plays the piano in a grand ballroom during a storm, during which the careening piano eventually crashes through a huge wall of glass and into a passenger's stateroom. The other was the apparently intense competition between 1900 and jazz great Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III) for musical supremacy among the ship's passengers. Wonderfully filmed , I was particularly taken with a scene in which 1900 wistfully stares out of one of the ship's windows after he tries to disembark but is unable to, due to his attachment to the Virginian. Using a truly original and clever technique, the rain outside the ship creates a slight stream of water to run along 1900's face simulating a tear from his right eye. The effect was very evocative of the way 1900 was feeling at the time, and a credit to the cinematographer for coming up with such a unique device. In it's own way, the scene foretold that there would be no happy ending to this tale of lost love and friendship, being more a character study defining the way someone has chosen to live their life with no attachments and no place to call home.